


Human failures

by SpaceDisgrace



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Mass Effect 3, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 03:31:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16054610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceDisgrace/pseuds/SpaceDisgrace
Summary: Shepard is only human, human and imperfect, and sometimes humans break, sometimes they hurt, and sometimes they need someone to help them up.-Set during Mass effect Three, after the Thessia mission and before Horizon -





	Human failures

The ship rumbled a deep hum that vibrated through the hull. Most of the time she never noticed it, the invisible workings of the Normandy, but if she focused, if she tried really hard, she could still feel it. It was comforting, in a sense. When she first moved into her cabin, she couldn't help but feel lonely, the silence and isolation away from the rest of the crew, she felt detached. She tried to cover the feeling with music, pets, and work, but nothing could block that deep feeling of loneliness. One night she had turned off the music and just sat in silence, feeling the emptiness, the dead air of nothing, but then she heard it, ever so faint and quiet. A thrum of metal gently sounding. So she listened, breathing in time with the highs and lows of the ships strange noises as she lay in bed staring up at the window.

Garrus was asleep beside her, curled up under most of the blankets, he always got too cold, the big baby. They were on their way to Horizon, a day out, maybe two. A part of her wished they wouldn't go at all. What if she failed? She couldn't face that, not after Thessia. The logical part of her, the marine told her that it wasn't her fault. How could one woman stop all that destruction, she had no way of preventing the way Thessia had fallen. Yet she was expected to do much more, so much more. She had to not only save Thessia, but she also had to save everyone, and the logical side falls apart.  _If I can't save a planet, how can I save a galaxy?_

Shepard rolled onto her side, pulling her knees up to her chest. Earth, Palaven, and now Thessia, she was present at the destruction of all, and she had fled each one, she had run, back to the safety of her ship, she felt like a coward. Her logic's told her this was the best thing to do, that she had to leave for the good of the galaxy, still didn't stop her from feeling the way she did. She couldn't get the image of the reapers towering over Thessia's beautiful architecture, the sound of the lone soldiers on the comm, screaming for help she couldn't give, for a savior that would never come. The way Liara sobbed, or how James raged, or Garrus silently grieved, it was all reminders of her failure. What was she supposed to do? She couldn't save everyone, she knew that, but that didn't stop her feeling the pain of every life she couldn't save. 

She rolled over again, facing Garrus, his back to her. She wanted to reach out and wrap her arms around his. Hold one of the only good things she had left, but her logic told her the possibility of both them surviving was slim, and she knew Garrus' logic told him the same. If she died, Garrus would move on, his family survived, his planet to rebuild, he could live without her. But Shepard had no idea how she would live without him. What was she without Garrus? Just a soldier, a tool to win this war, with the war over what would she be then? Maybe it would be better to distance herself now, get her ready for the possible heartbreak she might face. So Shepard turned away, curling up into herself, and forced sleep to come. 

...

Shepard woke with a start, the dream quickly drifting from her memory, but the unpleasant feeling lingered. She felt sick, her body sweaty and shaking, she felt like she couldn't breathe. She sat up pulling her knees to her chest.  _Breathe, just breathe_. The feeling of suffocation was not unfamiliar, the way her throat itched and burned, it was all too similar. 

"You okay?"

Shepard turned her head slightly, Garrus had turned over, sleep still in his eyes as he looked up at her, face filled with worry. She hated doing this to him, it was the same look he gave her whenever she got hurt. His worry look, his _let me shoot the thing that's hurting you_ look. He reached his hand and rested it gingerly on her side.

She grabbed it. "Yeah- yeah I'm fine, go back to sleep," she said, rubbing her thumb on the side of his palm. 

He shifted, untangling himself from the entire blanket and sat up. "Yeah, of course, you're fine, why would I think any different?" he said sarcastically, his mandibles flicking slightly in a smirk. He pulled her hand closer to him, squeezing it reassuringly. "You wanna talk about it?"

He could be so gentle sometimes. Garrus always radiated calm energy, always kept his cool, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise how soft he could be. But it always threw her off, not because it was strange, but because she didn't feel like she deserved it. She was hardass Commander Shepard, why did she feel so giddy when someone like Garrus was soft and gentle, especially to her?

She sighed, "I don't know," she admitted. She wanted to tell him how she felt, everything she was worried about, every thought that went through her head. She suspected he knew most of them, Garrus knew her better than anyone, but to voice them, to make them real, more tangible, was something entirely different. Garrus had so much else to worry about, Palaven, his family. To burden this on him would be unfair. He shifted closer removing one of his hands from hers and wrapping his arm around her shoulder, pulling her in. She leaned her head on his shoulder, so much for distancing herself.

"You're still hung up about Thessia?" he asked, voice low and calm.

"Yeah, and other things," she said. 

"Other things?" 

"Can I do this Garrus? I keep running from the Reapers, to find something that I don't even know what it does, what if I'm not enough?" she confessed, "What if all this running is for nothing?"

Garrus stroked her arm as he thought, his breathing steady and calm. "Well maybe you aren't enough, but there sure isn't any other person out there is more enough than you," he said. "When I think of someone who could make this whole thing come together, the only person I think could pull this off is you. And I know that doesn't help ease the burden, heck it probably increases it, but know that you are the best choice, you will either be enough, or you won't, but you are the best bet we've got," he continued.

Shepard laughed darkly to herself. "Hell, If I fail at least no one will be around to get angry with me."

Garrus chuckled lightly. "No more council on your ass," he added, "Though I bet you'd miss hanging up on them."

"I disconnected them twice, It's not like I did it all the time," she argued. 

"Of course not."

"Do you think I'll fail?" She asked. She needed to know where Garrus was at, he was always honest with her about her chances. He never sugarcoated it.

"You? No. I don't think _you_ will fail, but there are so many other things that play into this, It's not just a victory riding on you beating one thing like it was with Saren or the collectors. So many other people are involved, other people make mistakes and screw things up,"

"But I couldn't do this without other people,"

"No you couldn't, it's swings and roundabouts," he said. Shepard looked up at him and cocked an eyebrow at the human expression. "I've been reading earth literature."

"Have you? Anything interesting?" she asked.

"You question yourself's a lot, turian's don't struggle with what it is to be turian, we are good at it or bad at it,"

"And you're a very bad turian," she teased.

"That is true. But each human seems to have their own definition about the meaning, it's all so complex,"

"What can I say, we value individualism," she smirked.

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the deep hum of the ship. Shepard slowly stopped shaking, her breathing matching Garrus' and eventually he pulled the blanket over them both.

"You feeling better?" he asked, gently leading her to lie back down so they were facing each other. They were close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face, tickling her eyelashes. She nodded, though she still felt so out of control and completely out of her own depth. She supposed she would never fully feel at ease, not until it was over, or she was dead.

"Shepard, you can do this, and if not, we sure gave them one hell of a fight," he said, pressing his head against hers. She leaned in. Failure was on the table, no one liked to admit it was, but no matter how much you try to ignore it, or pretend it's not there, failure was always on the table. She had learned that failure was a part of life, that failures help you grow, that they make you more human, but usually failures affect only a small amount of people, the person who makes them and those surrounding them. But occasionally people are put into positions where failure affects more than themselves, sometimes people in these positions are idiots, sometimes they aren't. Sometimes they care about who their failures affect, and sometimes, a lot of times, they don't. Shepard had somehow found herself in more and more positions where her failures meant something to others, and each time she overcame them she was in thrown into higher stakes, with bigger failures waiting for her. Shepard was in a snowball of mistakes and overcoming them, each time leading to a bigger responsibility, and a bigger amount of people she could hurt, each mission growing exponentially with its importance and risk. 

Shepard was used to failure, but she was used to avoiding them by the skin of her teeth, she just hoped she had enough in her to avoid this one. 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so this was a little fluff that I decided to write to deal with my inability to finish ME3 for the third time because of all the feelings I have about it, so maybe this will help me come to terms with it. Also, my original works have a similar relationship and I wanted to practice writing it. Be gentle, it's my first fanfiction and it's more written for me than anyone else, but constructive criticism is always welcome, Thanks so much for reading xx


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